Dunking in the dark?

If you were “State side” on February 4th and not in a bunker anywhere, you will have heard, seen or experienced the now famous black out during Super Bowl 2013! Over 30 minutes of blackout in part of the stadium. Of course Facebook and twitter feeds were going crazy during that time and most of my friends joked that Beyonce’s half time show was too “hot” and blew out the electricity!

But there were some quick-thinking, creative and innovative companies that made headline news with their fast reaction on the twitter feed. And according to AdAge, Oreo cookies graphic and twitter feed “Power out? No problem. You can still dunk in the dark" was retweeted over 10,000 times in one hour!

We like to see creativity and innovation at work in real life, particularly during crisis times. So I dug a bit deeper to see if we could learn anything to help us be more creative and innovative.

The bottom line is that they were able to react quickly (with wit) because:

1. They had a team structure in place. Apparently they had a real-time, cross-functional team of people sitting in New York that were allowed to make decisions quickly without any red tape. 2. They were already listening to their audience, monitoring the chatter, so it was easier for them to react.3. They were willing to take some risk by taking what could have been a very serious event, and using humor to lighten the mood.

Team structure, listening and reacting, risk-taking – now isn’t that what the Super Bowl is all about – oh and creativity and innovation too?